Two sets of footsteps echoed through the corridor. Leading the way through the chalky-white pillars was a girl dressed in gray light armor with dark-brown hair bouncing on her shoulders. A narrow longsword hung at her waist. Just behind her was a juvenile dragon covered in downy pale-yellow hair, its long tail waving. The dragon was just tall enough to see over the girl, though its horns hadn’t grown in yet. The girl’s name was Ronie Arabel. The juvenile dragon was Tsukigake. Based on this heartwarming and beautiful fairy-tale image, it would be hard to imagine that in just a few years, this girl and her dragon would form a partnership as an Integrity Knight and her mount—the strongest battle unit in the entire Underworld. But in fact, at this early moment, there weren’t even a hundred people in the entire world with greater ability in swordplay and sacred arts than Ronie. She had battled at the front line all throughout the dreadful War of the Underworld and the subsequent Rebellion of the Four Empires and had ultimately been promoted to apprentice Integrity Knight—the first in history to be given that honor based entirely on merit.
Despite all that, however, the girl’s skill with the blade—sure to flourish further with the training ahead of her—would likely never actually be tested in combat. After three hundred years of chaos and warfare, true and absolute peace had arrived in the Underworld at last. Imperials, darklanders, goblins, orcs, ogres, and giants: The six races forged a permanent peace pact. The hierarchy of the four imperial clans and the upper nobles who had been responsible for torturing the common people was scrapped, once and for all. Merchant caravans headed to and fro through the empty space where the Eastern Gate had once stood, and visitors from the Dark Territory came to the capital city of Centoria. The fear and ignorance that had separated the two worlds began to melt away, as surely as the last melting bit of snow in the sun. The girl ran with her dragon, the light of Solus leaping back and forth across her figure as the line of pillars split it into burning stripes. At her hip, a sword that would never again taste the blood of an enemy swung. Like this, two sets of footsteps—tak-tak-tak-tak, plit-plat-plit-plat—continued into the distance and faded out of earshot. Seemingly out of nowhere, a large butterfly appeared in her wake, fluttering through the hallway as if enjoying the return of silence.
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